Category: Health

By Richard Riehl

Twenty years ago the California State Legislature passed the Public Schools Accountability Act, leading to the creation of an Academic Performance Index. Each year, every public school was to be assigned an API score, ranging from 200 to 1000, to measure its success. Proficiency in English and Math, based on standardized test scores, were the primary measures of a school’s API.

The goal of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002, passed by Congress, was for all school children to become proficient in English and Math by 2014. After the failure of both of these well-intentioned efforts, the California State Board of Education has teamed up with the California Department of Education to launch still another plan to measure the quality of public schools.

By Manuela Tobias / The Fresno Bee – Times of San Diego / Oct. 19, 2019

Maximina Molina Sanchez is worried about going hungry this winter. She depends on a food bank in Huron to feed her husband and two kids. But with most agricultural workers out of jobs during the winter, demand is bound to increase, so she worries there won’t be enough food to feed everyone who needs it.

The Sanchez family is among the 22% of people in Fresno County who couldn’t afford the groceries they needed in the past year. Fresno ranks third in the country for food insecurity, according to the Food Research and Action Center.

Fear-mongering does none of us any good. We need to talk about the actual evidence

By Eugene Gu / Independent / October 18, 2019 San Francisco

As a physician, I believe the medical community has a solemn responsibility to adhere to facts and evidence over hype and sensationalism. This is especially true when it comes to public health, for it is an integral part of our Hippocratic oath to “first, do no harm.”

Yet it is with great dismay that I’ve seen the medical community in both the mainstream press and on social media resort to fear-mongering and mob-like scapegoating when it comes to the nuanced complexities of the vaping epidemic in the United States. A UCSF Professor of Medicine and Director of the Center for Tobacco Control even tweeted that those who vape “would be better off just smoking.”

When doctors ignore actual evidence, we exploit our credibility as healers to promote our own agendas — which can ultimately cause great harm to patients.

by Jill Castellano & Brad Racino / inewsource / October 1, 2019

Congress will conduct a hearing to investigate a powerful healthcare office in the Department of Veterans Affairs following inewsource stories that exposed the office’s shoddy review of a dangerous San Diego liver study. A new inewsource analysis shows the agency under scrutiny — the VA’s Office of the Medical Inspector — has a long history of performing poor investigations into veterans’ medical care.

Indiana announced a third death linked to the illness on Friday. State and federal health officials are working urgently to understand the causes.

By Matt Richtel and Denise Grady / New York Times / Sept. 6, 2019

Federal health officials reported on Friday that the number of people sickened with a severe lung illness linked to vaping has more than doubled to 450 possible cases in 33 states, including three deaths and a possible fourth.

The Indiana Department of Health announced the third death on Friday, saying only that the victim was older than 18. “There is clearly an epidemic that begs for an urgent response,”

The County of San Diego Health and Human Services Agency announced on August 21 that people who had recently visited the Point Loma bakery, 85° Bakery Café on Rosecrans on August 15, 16, 17 and 18 from 6 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. may have been exposed to measles.

In a very recent local case of measles, the person was fully immunized but had exposure to an 11-month-old San Diego resident who contracted measles after a recent trip to the Philippines.

The bakery is located at 3361 Rosecrans. There were two other locations where the public may been been exposed: Min Sok Chon Korean Restaurant, 4620 Convoy St., on Aug. 15 from 6:30 p.m. to 2 a.m. and Ralph’s, 3011 Alta View Drive, on Aug. 16 from approximately 4:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

San Diego County continues its Water Quality Advisory for OB’s Dog Beach for the fourth day. The advisory – due to high bacterial levels – extends from the San Diego River outlet to 300 yards south.

Ocean goers are urged to avoid water contact in the advisory area as bacteria levels may exceed health standards. And that goes for dogs and pets, too.

The advisory for Dog Beach has been in effect since Tuesday, August 13, 2019.

Here is what the County’s Beach & Bay Water Quality Program website states:

by Jill Castellano & Brad Racino / inewsource / July 25, 2019

Twenty-one researchers from the University of California San Diego were involved in a study performed on babies in China that has been called unethical, risky and misleading. Experts say the experiment likely would not have passed an ethics review in the United States.

The experiment was a new surgical treatment for infants with cataracts and involved an eye incision in the hopes that the lens would regrow and work properly.

Dr. Kang Zhang, the former UCSD chief of eye genetics who resigned this month, helped design the study.

by Brad Racino & Jill Castellano / inewsource / May 30, 2019

Two prominent doctors associated with the University of California San Diego and the local VA used blood and stool samples taken from sick veterans to bolster a paper published this month in an academic research journal.

The specimens were not supposed to be used, according to the project’s lead researcher, because they were part of a study that unethically collected biological samples from living subjects without their consent, which investigators called “serious noncompliance.”

By Tim Fox / Camping Guide

Too many people limit their idea of camping to long hikes, tent setups, campfires and awkward conversations with strangers in the wild outdoors – but let us assure you that it is so much more than that.

We all live our day-to-day surrounded by the immense traffic of a relentlessly busy life. Smog, dust, and city lights cloud our vision of the stars at night; skyscrapers and busy streets prevent us from appreciating the beauty of nature.

The solution? A vast expanse of indigo sky watching over you, with stars serving as your rooftop for the night. Camping in the midst of such natural bliss gives us a needed reminder of the beauty of Mother Nature.

By Jill Castellano & Brad Racino / inewsource / May 14, 2019

University of California San Diego officials stonewalled attempts to notify women in an HIV research study that their confidential data was breached more than seven months ago, an inewsource investigation has found.

UCSD researchers conducting the EmPower Women study told university officials in October that participants’ names, audio-taped conversations and other sensitive materials were made accessible to everyone working at Christie’s Place, a San Diego nonprofit supporting women with HIV and AIDS.